


Rock Your Baby

by Pathologies



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012)
Genre: Alien Worlds, Blood, Healing, M/M, One Shot, Relationship Conflict, Violence, learning the rocky boat of a new relationship, taking a little vacation for the two friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 03:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7996525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pathologies/pseuds/Pathologies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being with people is a school of its own</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rock Your Baby

A loud noise like a hurricane blew in. Donatello whipped his head from his work station as the gust of a roar hit his ears. The terrified mutant dropped to the floor the instant he saw a huge bandaged hand smash against the assorted vials, the glasses splintering against his hand and chemicals dripping onto the floor. Donatello had no time to bemoan the loss of his current project as the beast had seen him slink off.  
  
Now on all fours, the mutant picked up a surprising amount of speed in its charge. Donatello yelped again as a huge muzzle snapped at his face. Only a second’s difference and a firm thwap to the snout prevented him from getting his head crushed. The turtle scooted backwards on his shell, a position looking comical were it not for his current predicament.  
  
The attacker before him, however moved just as fast. Donatello knew scooting back made a bad long-term plan. Rather than that, the terrapin leapt up to land on the alligator’s back.  Now that he hung off the alligator’s head he saw those reptilian eyes turned a dangerous milky white. With no trace of an iris, Donatello’s heart thrummed like a trapped insect. Handing him now felt like handling a twister with his bare hands.    
  
As analytical the terrapin was, he often had his short-sighted moments. He never considered this would make the mutant angrier. With an enraged roar, the beast’s strong arms came swiping at Donatello. The terrapin had the speed and placing to avoid them, but he needed a good anchor.  
  
He whipped out his bo staff, bringing it under the alligator’s chin. He lacked the strength of his brothers, but the terrapin knew when to hang on for survival’s sake. And holding Donatello found a hard task.  
  
“Leatherhead, snap out of it!” how did Mikey calm him down? Belly rubs? Seemed out of the question, he thought. “Come on, big guy…wake up…uh…” He tried to hum a tune half-haphazardly. Leatherhead must not have approved as the big scaly head bumped against the turtle’s chin with a heavy growl. “Oh come on!”  
  
Telling from the beast’s growls and violent thrashing, the alligator had a determination to remove and crush the unwanted passenger.  Donatello found himself shook about like a rag doll, his legs flying in the air. He ignored the burn in his arms from increased strain in his body. His teeth ground against each other between his pleas for reason. They couldn’t last long, neither of them.  
  
Donatello found the alligator picked a new strategy, one he responded with a well-placed shriek. Leatherhead dropped back to his fours, picking up speed while he galloped towards the nearest wall. He tightened his bo-staff vise, putting the squeeze on it in an attempt to steer the alligator away. He uttered many incoherent terrified phrases, twisting and turning his bo staff in an attempt to stop the beast. But nothing would keep the mutant from barreling towards his target.  
  
The terrapin immersed himself in prying the alligator away, he didn’t see the wall coming until he felt concrete ding against his head. Before he could make a single conscious thought, his shell hit the ground with Leatherhead’s heavy body dropping atop him. Donatello’s forehead felt wet as he touched his head to find a spattering of red on his finger.  
  
He looked back to the alligator, now looking more groggy than anything else. Leatherhead rose from the floor, groaning like one rising from a rusty spring bed. Noting the turtle beneath him, he rolls off with a heavy whump.  
  
“Donatello…?” he grunted out his words, “What…happened?”  
  
Something in the way the alligator said it, something about his ignorant tone that plucked Donnatello’s nerves like harpsicord pulled too tight. All the fearful expression that held him captive now condensed into a scrunching expression, a face that could almost rival a snapping turtle’s predator expression.  
  
“I don’t know,” his angry face had blinked out of view much like the second shockwave of a massive explosion, “Maybe it had to do with you destroying my lab again!” Those last words spat out with enough vitriol to weaponize each letter as a spear.  
  
“What do you mean?” Leatherhead’s eyes no longer had the milky white tinge, but looked like open caverns with light shining on them.  
  
Donatello slumped over, throwing his arms in the direction of the smashed chemistry set, “That’s three months work gone! Why? I don’t know, I guess you thought to yourself,” He put his hands to his cheeks in a sloppy imitation of the gator, “'Gee, why don’t I go to Donnie’s lab and destroy his life’s work! Oh, and give him a head injury while we’re at it?!‘”  
  
The alligator let his head tilt downward, his face dumbfounded, “Donatello…you know I cannot control it…I try…and I am getting better…”  
  
“No, this isn’t getting better! This is a nuke going off! You are a NUKE!”  
  
“What…” he sighed, stress creasing at his eyes, “What do you want me to do?”  
  
He exhales through clenched teeth, “Find someplace AWAY to deal with it.”  
  
Leatherhead looks Donatello in the eyes for once. His eyes may have as well shattered, “…if that what is best.”  
  
Donatello never bothered to look at Leatherhead shuffling off, he went right on to collecting his shattered sicence tools. His resentment hung like a heavy blanket over his head. Like all weights, the terrapin finds himself pulled so far he finds himself in an emotionally-drained oblivion.  
  
He catches his own face in a glass shard. He thinks of the material bending, distorting his face and the world around him til it breaks. Donatello’s a good scientist, he always tests a hypothesis. The shard doesn’t bend so easily, ultimately it just snaps in his hand, clattering on the floor.  
  
With nothing else in his hand and his drive burnt out he touches his forehead. The blood has dried by now, making the turtle make  a small utterance, “Leatherhead…”  
  
But he was gone now, “…ah I’m an idiot.”  
  
The terrapin ran off, searching for wherever the alligator went. His t-phone beeped in his hands, giving a readout of heat signatures every which way he went. The turtle sighed as he got ready to toss the t-phone against the ground when he saw a big patch of yellow and red on his readouts. He made no hesitation to rush off to the source of the signature.  
  
Leatherhead sat in a fetal position, patiently scanning a reservoir by him. One of his hunting grounds as fish made their way here every now and then. But he seemed less alert, his eyes scanning a motion that existed in his head alone. Donatello worried his bottom beak, seeing how despondent the mutant had grown.  
  
Always the hesitant one, Donatello was. He left the air hanging with quiet until his own guilt gnawed away the silence. “Leatherhead…?”  
  
The alligator lifted his head, “Donatello!” His brief happy recognition became washed under his same morose weariness, “…I took you advice.”  
  
“No…that was….that wasn’t good advice. I mean,” he sat down cross-legged, “Raph probably understands feelings better than me.”  
  
The alligator hugged at himself, like duct tape keeping a ball together, “I hurt you…I thought I did better…”  
  
“Leatherhead…no…you are doing good…I just…I have a problem dealing with feelings too. I…I exploded at you when you didn’t deserve it. I just…” Sigh. “I’m new at dealing with this kind of thing…us….me and you…but please, give me time. I want to be better with you.”  
  
“…I want to be better with you as well, Donatello, but I don’t know if I am safe for you.”  
  
“I’m a ninja, I can handle myself…” ok he overstated, “…I’m a scientist. I’ll come up with a plan.”  
  
“Do you truly want this, Donatello?” the flimsy trust hung on his eyes.  
  
Donatello brought a hand over the alligator’s, “I could say I do and I mean wow, I say a lot but…can I just show you instead?”  
  
Curious and intrigued, the alligator shook his consent. He had felt so worn out, he wanted anything to let him know it was ok. “Please.”  
  
The tech-savvy terrapin lead him back to the lair, both of them ignoring the pile of glass dusted into a neat pile.  Donnie praises himself for sequestering away his laptop in a metal briefcase. Having a little brother prepared him for many thing. Once booted up, Donatello hooks it up to the metallic orb lying on one of his work stations.  
  
“What are we doing?” Leatherhead’s hands rubbed against each other as he watched a neon triangle condense in the air.  His voice singed with a pained tone.  
  
“It’s not bad, Leatherhead, I promise. There’s no fighting  or anything we need to worry about.”  
  
The alligator hesitated before extending his hand. “Stay by me, Donatello.”  
  
The turtle took the implicit 'I trust you’, taking his hand as they stepped through the portal. They came through an expanse of stars and nebula swirling slow around them. One might think they would fall through without the presence of a solid walkway, portals flanking each side.  
  
“…I have never seen this place.” he marveled.  
  
“There’s a lot of secrets that not even—” he cleared his throat to stop the approaching K-word, “–not everyone knows. It’s like…an old subway station. They left it years ago, could you believe that? Advanced civilization and they just abandon these worlds. Funny, huh?”  
  
Leatherhead nodded slow, doing his best to keep up.  
  
Donnie flushed, embarrassed. “Sorry, I’m rambling. Anyway, a lot of these portals go nowhere, some of them are even broken. But some-” he leads Leatherhead towards a portal, “some of them lead to amazing places.” The turtle ducks in, his head popping out moments later, “It’s fine! Come on Leatherhead…I wanna make this up to you.”  
  
The mutant pushed his hand to grasp the other’s hand, moving at a pace like a ball through tar. He grasped the turtle’s hand, giving a trusting squeeze. He closed his eyes. Before he opened them he felt a slight chill.  
  
But he opened them to something completely unexpected. The sky above them didn’t show blue or Dimension X pink at all. Instead, he saw solid stripes of bright color, like pools and rivers in the sky. Whites and pinks and reds and yellows coexisted side by side, an abstraction covering the sky. They twisted around the sky, giving it the feeling of a candy melting over the air and freezing. Leatherhead gazed in awe as Donnie explained, “See, the light from multiple suns gets refracted through the thick upper layer and we get well…this. It’s all very interesting…”  
  
The alligator’s head looked down to see glass-like formations rising from the water below their feet. That was the strange thing—they stood on water, water that looked just like a starry night sky with a myriad stars and nebula clouds. Donatello rubbed the back of his head, “…I can’t explain that yet. I did a lot of exploring and um…” he sits down, “It’s like you can keep walking forever.”  
  
Leatherhead sat down, his legs crossed as his eyes seemed as starry as the water below him. Donatello ceased his rambling for awhile before scooting up to the alligator. He made not a sound, only sitting and looking as his tail made calm undulations.  
  
“This…” Donatello jerked to life when he finally spoke, “This is the most at peace I have felt…”  
  
The terrapin smiled, albeit a sad one, as he gently let his hand rest on the larger bandaged one, “It can be your place…you can go here and no one will bother you…I promise.”  
  
The terrapin hesitated before crawling beneath the alligator’s arm and getting situated in the alligator’s lap. Leatherhead gave a surprised grunt, “It has been a long time since you have sat with me.”  
  
“I know…I have a lot making up to do…I hope this is a good start.” He leans up to nuzzle beneath the mutant’s jawline.  
  
The alligator took one hand to gently cup the turtle’s cheek as Donatello leaned back with a soft murmur, “It more than helps, Donatello…”  
  
END


End file.
